Stephen King – The Dark Tower

exploded in a hot fire. He had learned that little fact from his friend Benny Slightman.

Benny’s death had been bad, but this was a thousand times worse. Amillion .

Eddie was shaking his head. “Not…so fast, buddy.” He drew in another breath and then

grimaced, as if the air had grown quills only he could feel. He whispered then—not from

weakness, Jake thought later, but because this was just between them. “Watch…for

Mordred. Watch…Dandelo.”

“Dandelion? Eddie, I don’t—”

“Dandelo.”Eyes widening. Enormous effort. “Protect…your…dinh…from Mordred.

From Dandelo. You…Oy.Your job.” His eyes cut toward Roland, then back to

Jake.“Shhh .” Then: “Protect…”

“I…I will.We will.”

Eddie nodded a little, then looked at Roland. Jake moved aside and the gunslinger leaned

in for Eddie’s word to him.

Eleven

Never, ever, had Roland seen an eye so bright, not even on Jericho Hill, when Cuthbert

had bade him a laughing goodbye.

Eddie smiled. “We had…some times.”

Roland nodded again.

“You…you…” But this Eddie couldn’t finish. He raised one hand and made a weak

twirling motion.

“I danced,” Roland said, nodding. “Danced the commala.”

Yes,Eddie mouthed, then drew in another of those whooping, painful breaths. It was the

last.

“Thank you for my second chance,” he said. “Thank you…Father.”

That was all. Eddie’s eyes still looked at him, and they were still aware, but he had no

breath to replace the one expended on that final word, thatfather . The lamplight gleamed

on the hairs of his bare arms, turning them to gold. The thunder murmured. Then Eddie’s

eyes closed and he laid his head to one side. His work was finished. He had left the path,

stepped into the clearing. They sat around him a-circle, but ka-tet no more.

Twelve

And so, thirty minutes later.

Roland, Jake, Ted, and Sheemie sat on a bench in the middle of the Mall. Dani Rostov and

the bankerly-looking fellow were nearby. Susannah was in the bedroom of the proctor’s

suite, washing her husband’s body for burial. They could hear her from where they were

sitting. She was singing. All the songs seemed to be ones they’d heard Eddie singing along

the trail. One was “Born to Run.” Another was “The Rice Song,” from Calla Bryn Sturgis.

“We have to go, and right away,” Roland said. His hand had gone to his hip and was

rubbing, rubbing. Jake had seen him take a bottle of aspirin (gotten God knew where) from

his purse and dry-swallow three. “Sheemie, will you send us on?”

Sheemie nodded. He had limped to the bench, leaning on Dinky for support, and still none

of them had had a chance to look at the wound on his foot. His limp seemed so minor

compared to their other concerns; surely if Sheemie Ruiz were to die this night it would be

as a result of opening a makeshift door between Thunder-side and America. Another

strenuous act of teleportation might be lethal to him—what was a sore foot compared to

that?

“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll try my very hardest, so I will.”

“Those who helped us look into New York will help us do this,” Ted said.

It was Ted who had figured out how to determine the current when on America-side of the

Keystone World. He, Dinky, Fred Worthington (the bankerly-looking man), and Dani

Rostov had all been to New York, and were all able to summon up clear mental images of

Times Square: the lights, the crowds, the movie marquees…and, most important, the giant

news-ticker which broadcast the events of the day to the crowds below, making a complete

circuit of Broadway and Forty-eighth Street every thirty seconds or so. The hole had

opened long enough to inform them that UN forensics experts were examining supposed

mass graves in Kosovo, that Vice President Gore had spent the day in New York City

campaigning for President, that Roger Clemens had struck out thirteen Texas Rangers but

the Yankees had still lost the night before.

With the help of the rest, Sheemie could have held the hole open a good while longer (the

others had been staring into the brilliance of that bustling New York night with a kind of

hungry amazement, not Breaking now but Opening, Seeing), only there turned out to be no

need for that. Following the baseball score, the date and time had gone speeding past them

in brilliant yellow-green letters a story high:JUNE 18, 1999 9:19 PM .

Jake opened his mouth to ask how they could be sure they had been looking into Keystone

World, the one where Stephen King had less than a day to live, and then shut it again. The

answer was in the time, stupid, as the answer always was: the numbers comprising 9:19

also added up to nineteen.

Thirteen

“And how long ago was it that you saw this?” Roland asked.

Dinky calculated. “Had to’ve been five hours, at least. Based on when the change-of-shifts

horn blew and the sun went out for the night.”

Which should make it two-thirty in the morning right now on the other side,Jake

calculated, counting the hours on his fingers. Thinking was hard now, even simple addition

slowed by constant thoughts of Eddie, but he found he could do it if he really tried.Only

you can’t depend on its only being five hours, because time goes faster on America-side.

That may change now that the Breakers have quit beating up on the Beam—it may

equalize—but probably not yet. Right now it’s probably still running fast.

And it might slip.

One minute Stephen King could be sitting in front of his typewriter in his office on the

morning of June 19th, fine as paint, and the next…boom! Lying in a nearby funeral parlor

that evening, eight or twelve hours gone by in a flash, his grieving family sitting in their

own circle of lamplight and trying to decide what kind of service King would’ve wanted,

always assuming that information wasn’t in his will; maybe even trying to decide where

he’d be buried. And the Dark Tower? Stephen King’s version of the Dark Tower? Or Gan’s

version, or thePrim ’s version? Lost forever, all of them. And that sound you hear? Why,

that must be the Crimson King, laughing and laughing and laughing from somewhere deep

in the Discordia. And maybe Mordred the Spider-Boy, laughing along with him.

For the first time since Eddie’s death, something besides grief came to the forefront of

Jake’s mind. It was a faint ticking sound, like the one the Sneetches had made when Roland

and Eddie programmed them. Just before giving them to Haylis to plant, this had been. It

was the sound of time, and time was not their friend.

“He’s right,” Jake said. “We have to go while we can still do something.”

Ted: “Will Susannah—”

“No,” Roland said. “Susannah will stay here, and you’ll help her bury Eddie. Do you

agree?”

“Yes,” Ted said. “Of course, if that’s how you’d have it.”

“If we’re not back in…” Roland calculated, one eye squinted shut, the other looking off

into the darkness. “If we’re not back by this time on the night after next, assume that we’ve come back to End-World at Fedic.”Yes, assume Fedic, Jake thought.Of course. Because

what good would it do to make the other, even more logical assumption, that we’re either

dead or lost between the worlds, todash forever?

“Do’ee ken Fedic?” Roland was asking.

“South of here, isn’t it?” asked Worthington. He had wandered over with Dani, the

pre-teen girl. “Or whatwas south? Trampas and a few of the other can-toi used to talk of it

as though it were haunted.”

“It’s haunted, all right,” Roland said grimly. “Can you put Susannah on a train to Fedic in

the event that we’re not able to come back here? I know that at least some trains must still

run, because of—”

“The Greencloaks?” Dinky said, nodding. “Or the Wolves, as you think of them. All the

D-line trains still run. They’re automated.”

“Are they monos? Do they talk?” Jake asked. He was thinking of Blaine.

Dinky and Ted exchanged a doubtful look, then Dinky returned his attention to Jake and

shrugged. “How would we know? I probably know more about D-cupsthan D-lines, and I

think that’s true of everyone here. The Breakers, at least. I suppose some of the guards

might know something more. Or that guy.” He jerked a thumb at Tassa, who was still

sitting on the stoop of Warden’s House, head in hands.

“In any case, we’ll tell Susannah to be careful,” Roland murmured to Jake. Jake nodded.

He supposed that was the best they could do, but he had another question. He made a

mental note to ask either Ted or Dinky, if he got a chance to do so without being overheard

by Roland. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Susannah behind—every instinct of his heart

cried out against it—but he knew she would refuse to leave Eddie unburied, and Roland

knew it, too. They could make her come, but only by binding and gagging her, and that